Santorum: Gay marriage will destroy church, family

Ex-Sen. Rick Santorum entered the campaign against same-sex marriage in Washington state on Tuesday with an apocalyptic warning about its potential consequences on America’s families and churches.

The former Republican presidential candidate spoke to a closed-door Spokane fundraiser for the Family Policy Institute of Washington. He was preceded to the podium by U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris-Rodgers, a leader in Mitt Romney’s state campaign and member of the House Republican leadership.

“This is a turning point in American history and, yes, the state of Washington,” Santorum argued. A video of Santorum’s address was obtained by SeattlePI.com.

“The movement you are fighting is the most important movement to win,” Santorum added. He said it is even more important that the movement to block abortion in America. He warned that marriage will “disintegrate” along with the American family if same-sex marriage becomes legal.

“This issue will destroy and undermine the church in American more than any other movement,” said Santorum.

Washington, Maryland and Maine are voting on marriage equality in November. No state has ever approved same-sex marriage at the polls, but opinion polls in all three states have shown marriage equality in the lead.

Joseph Backholm, head of the Family Policy Institute of Washington, is the chief spokesman against Referendum 74, the measure which would make Washington the seventh state to adopt marriage equality.

Opponents are “on the side of truth,” Santorum told his audience, “You folks are in the front line. You folks are in the foxhole.”

Supporters of marriage equality have amassed an $8.9 million campaign war chest. They have aired TV spots featuring Methodist and United Church of Christ ministers. A group of 63 former Roman Catholic priests is scheduled to endorse Referendum 74 at a Thursday morning news conference.

As in California four years ago, hover, opponents are rallying late in the campaign. They have reserved $1.5 million in TV time. The Catholic Bishop of Yakima, the Rt. Rev. Joseph Tyson, issued a pastoral letter on Referendum 74, claiming: “It endangers our religious liberty and the right of conscience.”

A longtime critic of gay rights — he even raised the issue of bestiality after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2003 ruling that threw out Texas’ anti-sodomy law — Santorum charged that foes of marriage equality are being “cast as bigots.”

In Santorum’s words, “a secular revolution, a Godless revolution” has swept across every Western European country, which he said “is why they are declining.”

The revolution threatens to cross the pond, he argued. If successful, it will “destroy the institutions of America’s foundation, destroy the American family,” Santorum said.

The former Republican presidential candidate noted that the percentage of Americans who are married has declined from 72 percent to 51 percent in recent years.

He talked of a movement of “normalization, acceptance, tolerance” of the gay/lesbian lifestyle that has grown up since the mid to late 1990′s, aided by “elites” and the “popular culture.”

“This will be the norm in America,” he said. “This is what you are fighting. You are on the front lines.”